Student services soar on campuses

Spending jumps to save costs, boost development

Feb. 7, 2014

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South Dakota universities and technical schools spend more on administrators, professional staff and part-time faculty than they did a decade ago, a new report shows.

But contrary to studies that suggest an increase in overpaid executives shuffling papers in back offices is driving up the cost of higher education, the report by the Delta Cost Project of the American Institutes for Research finds that much of the new spending is on jobs involving direct contact with students.

Those student services positions — in financial aid, counseling, student activities, health care — are defined by the federal government as primarily contributing to “students’ emotional and physical well-being, and to their intellectual, cultural and social development outside the context of the formal instructional program.”

At Southeast Technical Institute in Sioux Falls, the percentage of professional staff per 1,000 students jumped 207 percent between 2004 and 2012 — an increase that didn’t surprise school president Jeff Holcomb.

For one, STI has hired technicians to assist students in labs and shops. It’s more cost-effective to employ, say, certified auto technicians than to have full-time faculty perform those duties, he said.

STI also added what Holcomb calls “student success advisers,” professional staff whose job is keeping students in school and helping to chart their course to a successful completion of their degrees. For those needing help figuring out financial aid, tutoring or life in general on campus, those advisers should have answers, Holcomb said.

That same surge in professional staff has played out across the public university system, said Paul Turman, the state Board of Regents’ vice president for research and economic development. Some of that is tied into federal requirements such as the American Disabilities Act, Title IX and the Clery Act, which requires colleges and universities participating in federal financial aid programs to keep and disclose information about crime on or near their campuses.

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“We recognize that regulations have increased, and rightly so to protect students,” Turman said. “But more regulations mean more people to manage the processes on our campuses.”

Student initiatives

Like the technical schools, public and private universities in the state also have developed student success initiatives. All have more people responsible for tracking and monitoring student progression.

“As people have become more concerned about graduation rates and retention, we have spent more time developing success centers,” Turman said. “There’s more tutoring, more avenues for students to get assistance in many areas where they are struggling. As a result, we’ve seen student service expenses grow versus instructional and administrative spending.”

What the Delta report also documents is a rise in part-time or temporary professors alongside declines in full-time faculty hires. The concern there is that part-time or adjunct faculty are not as fully invested in higher ed institutions if they are not there full time, and thus might bring less vigor to student instruction.

Cost-effective

Provost Chuck Staben at the University of South Dakota understands that concern. His university assesses part-time faculty versus full-time faculty at different levels of experiences, “and our full-time faculty are more effective in teaching than the part-time,” Staben said.

“But it is a relatively small gap,” he quickly continued. “And we are working very hard to develop teaching and training for our part-time faculty to basically bring them up to the standards that we routinely expect.”

From 2004 to 2012, USD’s part-time faculty ratio per 1,000 students rose from 51.31 to 78.9 — a jump of 53.8 percent. As many institutions have learned, adjunct or part-time instructors for lower-level and online courses “are much more cost-effective,” Staben said. “When you read the whole Delta study, you’ll find one of the big drivers of costs is benefits provided by universities. Our part-time faculty typically do not receive benefits.”

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While USD had more than 10,000 students in 2012, its full-time equivalent number was 7,440.

Experts in the field

At South Dakota’s four technical institutes, the jump in part-time faculty has been dramatic. STI’s numbers were up 110.5 percent between 2004 and 2012. At Western Dakota Technical Institute in Rapid City, the increase was 188.8 percent.

Holcomb said faculty at the tech schools typically aren’t Ph.D.s, “nor do we want them to be Ph.D.s.”

In a law enforcement program, schools might hire a lawyer to teach one class about law, he said. They might hire a diesel mechanic to teach a course or two in that field.

“We have found that a very good teaching tool is to utilize those individuals who have a very clear, focused training for those particular portions of the program for which we need them,” Holcomb said.

Aside from the marked increase at USD, the percentage shifts in full-time versus part-time faculty at the public universities have been small. In fact, the state’s emphasis on spurring economic development through research actually has increased the number of Ph.D. positions in the state over the past decade, Turman said.

“You can’t build research infrastructure on part-time faculty,” he said. “So while we’ve grown in having part-time faculty teach certain courses, we’ve also given our students a better exposure to top-notch researchers. And that’s a good thing.”

CORRECTION

This article originally incorrectly characterized an increase in part-time faculty and graduate student instructors at the University of South Dakota. The study based its findings on the number of part-time faculty and graduate students per 1,000 full-time equivalent enrolled students. The Argus Leader article didn’t note the full-time equivalent designation. While USD had over 10,000 students in 2012, its full-time equivalent number was 7,440.